Second Thoughts (27 page)

He was looking right at me by the end and I couldn't do anything but stare back. My heart swelled and plummeted and did whoop-diwhoops in my chest. As he spoke, I saw it. I saw my whole future right there in front of me. And it was a
happy
one. After college, we'd move back here and I'd start my own antiques gallery just like I'd always wanted, and it would be perfect. Eventually we'd get married just like Amy predicted and everything
would. Be. Perfect.
If there was a such a thing as fate, I felt like I'd just seen mine,
without
the help of a Sententia gift.

“Do you believe in fate?” I asked.

At my unexpected question, he tilted his head just to the left. He was so beautiful it was almost painful and I couldn't help myself from leaning forward to kiss him, quickly on the lips. His whole face brightened with a smile.

“What was that for?”

“I think it was fate,” I said. “If you believe in that kind of thing.”

That bright grin shifted toward the mischievous, my only warning before he reached forward and grabbed me tight around the waist.
Papers fluttered to the floor around us as he pulled me onto his lap and held me there. I made a halfhearted squeak of protest but ruined it by giggling when his breath tickled my neck. “I do,” he said, and his tone told me he took my question seriously. He always did. “Believe in fate. How could I not? I'm holding a Diviner in my arms. You deal in fate every day.”

“That feels more like…chaos.”

He kissed the skin behind my ear and made me shiver. I wished I was looking at him but I didn't want to ruin the perfection of the moment by trying to turn around. His closeness was a warm blanket and I snuggled deeper into it. “It is,” he agreed. “Chaos is part of the process.”

“Then how can it be fate? How can that be the same thing?”

“You've really thought about this, huh?” he teased and I bumped him with my head. Of course I had, and I knew he had too. While he continued, I traced his fingers with mine. “Why can't it be the same thing? Fate's not this one fixed, immutable thing. Fate's the future. It's ever-shifting. Some of it shifts more than others.”

“That's not fate at all then.”

“Isn't it?”

I didn't know.

“Fate's what happens in the end,” he went on. “What good would God, or whatever you call what connects us, be if our decisions and actions meant nothing?” The question hung there in the room with us, the fire crackling and the air sparking with something that might have been the elusive fate I was trying to define. Always more concerned than I was, Carter asked at last, “Is this about the vision? Has something changed?”

“No,” I said. “Our fate is currently wide open.” On a whim, or in a choice made by my heart without strict permission from my head, I
told him, “And I think…I want it to be in Boston next year. I think I want to go to Boston.”

As soon as I said it, the vision returned.

I
was shocked, almost literally. As soon as I'd said Boston, the hum of recognition rose up between us, vibrating subtly at every point where we touched. It was different from the quiet, barely discernible sense that came from his birth, from his mother's death. I had to work to notice that at all. This was a new feeling, insistent but somehow erratic. I'd grown used to the idea that it was gone, a defunct possible future and no longer on our worry list.

Carter squeezed me tight, oblivious to the continued coming and going of his role in my death, while I tried to control my breathing. “Harvard. Nice.”

There were still no details—just my face, cold, white, and lifeless, along with the irrefutable knowledge that Carter had made it that way—but I knew I was dead. Really dead. Or I would be, and soon, if I went through with the decision I'd just made.

I wasn't sure what made me say that, about Boston. I thought I
hadn't
decided yet, especially after just seeing my uncle. Was
that
it? Had I been unconsciously leaning toward Boston all along and something about going
there
would bring about my death?

So, I changed my mind.

“No, wait! That wasn't final. Baltimore…the others are still definitely on the table.”

The vision faded away.

That was it. Fate was that facile. One decision, made with conviction, could change everything in the matter of a few heartbeats. I was safe again, for now. Just as quickly as it came, the hum disappeared.

My pulse began to slow and breaths come easier. If Carter sensed the moment of anxiety, he didn't comment, likely writing it off to the decision I was struggling to make. I knew I should tell him what just happened but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to say it. A few minutes ago, I wished I could see him, but now I was glad he was behind me and couldn't see
my
face. Why Boston?

“So what you're saying is I can recycle the New York papers?”

“No. I might be into this real estate thing.”

“But not NYU?”

I tested fate. “Not NYU.”

Still no vision. New York was my clear third choice, so with no vision when I eliminated it, I kept it off the list. Baltimore, not Boston.

“Good,” he said, and I could feel him smiling. “I knew we'd be on the same page. I wasn't really sure I wanted to buy a place in New Haven anyway.”

Interesting. Did our changing fate have something to do with
his
favored destination? The thought made my breath catch again. “Do…do you
really
want to go to D.C.? Is that what
you
want?”

“No,” he said. “Not necessarily.” It
sounded
genuine. He shifted me off his lap and back onto the couch, making me work hard to control my expressions. “Yale was just my least favorite of a bunch of great options. I wouldn't have minded it, though I meant it that I might not have bought a place in New Haven. I'd
like
D.C., but I'd like Boston, too.
I'd
even like California,” he added and poked me in the ribs.

“I'm not sure either of us could afford a place out there anyway,” I joked, but it wasn't very convincing.

“Hey. What's up? Do you really
not
want D.C.? Did you just say that because you thought I did?”

“No. I don't know what I want.” Just that I want to live. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Planning the future usually is.”

Is it? I didn't know that either. “It never was before. We moved where the art took us, and then Northbrook fell in my lap. Now I have to…to make a
commitment.
Amy would tell you I'm afraid of that.” I'd half forgotten about my fight with my roommate.

“She'd be wrong,” Carter said. “You're afraid of
deciding.
The commitment part you do with your whole heart.”

O
N THE WAY
out of the dorm the next morning, I took a moment to observe the poinsettia. It was a little wilted from yesterday, but a brief touch of one of the leaves told me it didn't just need water. There was no hum of life to it; I'd definitely killed it, even if it would be days before it truly showed the signs of what I'd done.

Amy and I still hadn't spoken, and I didn't think either of us was ready to apologize. We'd both returned right at curfew last night, and I'd left this morning before she got up. On Sunday mornings, I didn't have anywhere I had to be; I just didn't want to be there. I grabbed my real estate papers and went to the dining hall for caffeine. At breakfast, I found Brooke. Thank God for having one friend who was a morning person.

“Hey early riser,” I said and slumped down into the seat across from her.

She smiled. “Hey yourself…though you're not quite yourself this morning. Usually you
like
being up this early. Still tired from Friday?”

“Something like that.” Actually, I'd just killed one of the plants that sat on the table with the silverware and plates, but I didn't mention that. After a sip of coffee, I finally managed a smile for her.

“It was pretty awesome, the Ball, wasn't it? I had more fun than last year.”

“Not me,” I said and we laughed.

“Of course not!” She shook her head seriously. “Only one girl kissed your boyfriend, and it was
you.
Where's the fun in that?”

“You know…” I said, and I told her about how Alexis had actually been the first girl besides me to kiss him last year. I wasn't sure why I decided to tell her, if it was because I was feeling a little less at odds with Alex now so I could laugh about it, or if I was actually feeling really bitchy because of Amy and wanted to spill someone's secret.

“Wow,” Brooke said, her lips hanging in a perfect
O
shape. “And not only did you vote for her this year—she told me what you said—you seemed thrilled when you both won.”

“I was!” I said, and we laughed again.

“If I weren't actually your friend, I think I'd probably hate you for being so frustratingly goodie-goodie.”

And that hit a little too close to home, after what Amy had said. I didn't mean it to, but my smile disappeared and I pushed some bites of breakfast around my plate.

“Hey.” Brooke reached across the table to knock on my cast with the back of her fork. “I was just kidding. You're a sweetheart and, I mean, you were Winter Queen. Everybody
the opposite of
hates you.”

Now I was getting a pity party, and that just made me feel worse. “Sorry,” I said. “That's not—I wasn't fishing for compliments or whatever. It's just…” a lot of things. The problem was that
I
was angry, with Amy, with myself, and basically with everything. I'd gotten one night—
one freaking night
—where everything seemed great, and now

I was bitter. Maybe I shouldn't have gone to the dance after all. It was only making me unhappy now. “I'm
really
not perfect,” is what I said.

Brooke took a bite of rye toast—I swore she was the only girl in the whole school who ate rye toast—and chewed thoughtfully while I stirred my coffee. I realized how much I was going to miss her next year, and if last night's discussion with Carter had made it apparent, this breakfast emphasized how soon “next year” really was. Supposing I made it to next year, anyway. Brooke would still be here, and I'd be…I wanted to say in Boston, I realized, but that was dangerous.

Wherever I was, I'd have to find someone new to get up early and have
real
conversations with me. That was the great thing about our friendship—we almost never hung out together other than volleyball, which meant we didn't share drama. She had her friends and I had mine, and together we could just sort of
be.
Plus being up early, especially on weekends, hardly anyone else was around. Here was a little bubble of comfort no one had managed to take from me yet, but in a few weeks, one way or another, I'd still lose it anyway.

After a moment, she said, “I wasn't kidding that you're not yourself this morning. And I'm super tempted to check what you want right now, but I promise I won't. Do you want to tell me though? What's up?”

“I want…” I wanted to tell, everything, all my secrets, if just to tell
anyone,
but I couldn't. So instead I told her, “I want permission to conduct these dates via telephone next year, that's what I want. Promise you'll let me call you when I'm up on Sunday morning and just want someone to have coffee with me and cheer me up?”

She smiled, then picked up her own coffee mug and clinked it against mine. “Promise.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, we can even do a video call. Just prop me up across from you, and I'll even get you your own cup of mediocre dining hall coffee. It'll be like you never left.”

“Perfect.”

We both went to refill our mediocre cups of coffee and our impromptu date turned into a long one. By the time we finally got up to leave, the students who actually make it to breakfast hours on Sundays had all come and gone around us, while I clung to my tiny life raft of sanity for as long as I could. In some ways, that breakfast felt like an encapsulation of my whole year. I was jumping from stone to precious stone while a river of secrets and fears surged around me. For the few seconds I managed to stay out of the water, it was a relief to feel dry.

But breakfast was over, and when we stopped inside the glass doors to watch a light snow that had started to fall, Brooke gave me a helpful push back into the rapids. “Hey, speaking of wants…I've been trying to get to the bottom of, um, the Mandi issue.”

I pictured her smirking at me last night. I was supremely glad lower school students weren't allowed to attend the Ball or no doubt she and her smirk would have been there. “Any idea what she's up to? I mean, is it more than the obvious?”

Brooke spoke in undertones, with a look of concentration on her face I recognized. It was similar to the one I wore when I tried to explain a vision, to put into words the impossible things our gifts could let us know and feel in our minds.

“It's…confusing.” No doubt it was. “I think
she's
confused. But, I don't know, maybe it
was
Mandi I sensed earlier in the year. I mean, sometimes she just wants, like, a candy bar—I wish reading people was always as easy as those simple things. But when it's not, well, you know. For Mandi, it's like she's got some crusade going, something about family. She wants Lex to win, whatever that means, and she wants to help. She wants
recognition
for helping. And it's like, wanting
Lex to win, she wants you to lose. It's like that's the same thing. And maybe it was for the Winter Queen, but…it
feels
bigger than that. I'm not sure I can explain it right.”